Conventionally, massaging devices for home use or for business use have been roughly divided into one of the following categories: kneading-ball type comprising a pair of kneading balls transversely mounted on a stationary housing so that they can swing; roller type comprising a plurality of massaging rollers disposed on a rotary table in the circumferential direction thereof; and vibrator type comprising a massaging member vibrating at a high speed and provided on one end of a casing which can be held with both hands.
To be more specific about the conventional vibrator-type massaging devices, a vibrating plate operable at a high speed is provided on top of the casing and the massaging member having a top surface for contact with a human body is secured to the top surface of the vibrating plate. Such a massaging device exerts massaging effects when the contact surface of its massaging member is pressed onto the back or other part of a user's body.
However, the conventional vibrator-type massaging devices provide only one type of massaging effects resulting from the vibrating of the massaging member, since the massaging member simply vibrates at a high speed. As a result, the conventional vibrator-type massaging devices have had difficulty in responding to the diversity of the user's tastes.
To overcome the above difficulty, the above vibrator-type massaging device can be adapted to have a kneading means comprising a pair of kneading balls transversely mounted on the outside of the massaging member. With the adaptation, however, the vibrating action and the kneading action cannot be obtained simultaneously in the same body part to be massaged, so that the combined massaging effects cannot be obtained. Moreover, the massaging device is disadvantageously increased in size.
In view of the foregoing situation, it is an object of the present invention to enable a massaging member to simultaneously perform a vibrating action and a kneading action on the same body part without upsizing a massaging device comprising the massaging member.